Network Neutrality is for On-Line Marketers too!

If Internet access providers, such as telephone and cable companies, begin preferring certain web sites or content types over others, it will be harder for the marketing community to determine whether observed on-line behavior is due to customer choice or provider choice. In addition, the threat of extra charges for "preferred" delivery is likely to saddle on-line marketers with extra charges or degraded service. Two Network Neutrality experts analyze the ins and outs of the debate, project the next moves by FCC and Congress, and discuss potential ways that the on-line marketing community can respond.

There were few people who attended this session and I decided to so I'd learn something new.
Rebecca Lieb does not have a iPhone as she's protesting ATT who is against Net Neutrality.

David Isenberg – Network Neutrality is a good idea, gave a speech in 2006 that lead to blocking a bill allowing Network Neutrality.

Tim Karr – Free Press is a mobilizing group for many companies and organizations that see a financial interest in this issue.

What's in it for us? If the Telephone companies that can have influence over what we do on the internet than those of us who run ads can't do our jobs. The reason this is important to us is – if the guys who run the wires pollute our ability to use the internet the way we'd like then we'll not be able to do our jobs.

The lessons learned from pervious efforts and this one is that people care and businesses should care as well. We learned that ceding policy making to the lobbyists we're not helping anyone. A lot of the internet marketing groups (that are here today) require freedom to innovate.

The people who created Google, IM, etc, were not immediately noteworthy people yet they had the freedom to create. In order to continue to innovate we need to continue to have freedom to use the internet the way we need to.

However, at this time, we're paying more for high speed internet (and at lower speed) than other parts of the world (South Korea, France, etc). We're in the process of setting up a public and private collection of groups.

Four Principles of Net Neutrality
* Access – Every home and business in America must have easy access to a high speed world class communications infrastructure.
Note: in Sweden you can get a internet connection up to 100 faster than ours for about 16 bucks.
* Choice – Every consumer must enjoy real competition in online content to achieve higher speeds and quality.
* Openness
* Innovation.
We haven't accomplished most of this in the United States.

Rebecca Lieb – what happens to Google if phone companies get to decide how we use the internet?

Suppose Verizon Internet Services has a special deal when you were looking for books favored Barnes and Noble and made Amazon come up slightly slower. Such things could happen were phone companies would control the internet bandwidth.

As analysts of the data, the response will be polluted by the Verizon would be doing. Google is behind Net Neutrality along with Yahoo but Microsoft is on the fence.